Songs in a Hospital: Open Windows

Out of the window a sea of green trees

    Lift their soft boughs like arms of a dancer;

They beckon and call me, “Come out in the sun!”

    But I cannot answer.


I am alone with Weakness and Pain,

    Sick abed and June is going,

I cannot keep her, she hurries by

    With the silver-green of her garments blowing.


Men and women pass in the street

    Glad of the shining sapphire weather,

But we know more of it than they,

    Pain and I together.


They are the runners in the sun,

    Breathless and blinded by the race,

But we are the watchers in the shade

    Who speak with Wonder face to face.


The Yale Review is committed to publishing pieces from its archive as they originally appeared, without alterations to spelling, content, or style. Occasionally, errors creep in due to the digitization process; we work to correct these errors as we find them. You can email [email protected] with any you find.

Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) was an American poet. She was the first person to win the Poetry Society of America Prize, later renamed the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, for her 1917 poetry collection Love Songs.
Originally published:
July 1, 1916

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